Literature and Community I chose to write about the story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara and the poem We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks. The reason I chose to write this essay on these two works is because The Lesson is more about positivity and making changes as where We Real Cool is about the negative choices that young people often times make. In The Lesson , Miss Moore has moved into to a lower class black neighborhood. Miss Moore is different from the others in the neighborhood. She wears her hair natural and speaks proper English. The narrator describes her as “black with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup.” (p.427) Miss Moore’s purpose was to open the eyes of the children to how poor people and black people were discriminated against socially and economically. She perhaps wanted to spark the children into understanding that they could help make a change not only within themselves but among the community as a whole. Young people face and struggle with many challenges in today’s society. Drugs, gangs, promiscuity and substance abuse are at an all time high. Children are joining gangs and becoming sexually active at younger ages. Children and people of all ages have a desire and an intense need to fit into society. Children need positive role models like Miss. Moore in their lives. I feel that today we can see the changes that are long past due coming to pass. The dreams of many people finally being recognized. Our faith in change and possibilities has been renewed. The poem We Real Cool was written in 1950 and The Lesson was written in the 1970’s. They are both timeless works which are still yet reflections of our community to this day in 2009. The more things change, the more they stay the same.